


Metamorphosis

by justbecauseyoubelievesomething



Series: Writer's Month 2020 Prompts [14]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Study, Episode: s04e13 Praimfaya - Time Jump, F/M, Metamorphosis, POV Clarke Griffin, Pining, Praimfaya | Radiation Wave, Torture, happy ish, lots of gratuitous metaphors
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-23
Updated: 2020-08-23
Packaged: 2021-03-06 21:46:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,251
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26065960
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/justbecauseyoubelievesomething/pseuds/justbecauseyoubelievesomething
Summary: Clarke thinks she loves Bellamy Blake. She's afraid she loves Bellamy Blake.A Bellarke one-shot/character study for Writer's Month 2020. Prompt 14: metamorphosis.
Relationships: Bellamy Blake/Clarke Griffin
Series: Writer's Month 2020 Prompts [14]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1863823
Comments: 2
Kudos: 30
Collections: Writer's Month 2020





	Metamorphosis

Bellamy Blake feels like something alive.

For Wanheda, someone so closely associated with death, that’s a blessing.

He feels like something alive and green and growing and Clarke clings to that with all her heart. It gives her hope, more than she dares to admit. He gives her hope as they crawl from plan to plan, desperately trying to prepare for Praimfaya.

It often feels like they’re fighting a relentless tide. They might as well be trying to turn the earth back on its axis. Bellamy makes a grim joke about Sisyphus and his boulder. An infinite loop. Pushing and rolling and falling over and over.

Clarke shoves his shoulder a little and they laugh, but the image remains. The two of them pushing back against the world as it falls down on their shoulders. Turning it over and over, always finding somewhere, some way to survive.

She’s tired, so tired.

Then Bellamy walks into her office and he’s a breath of fresh air, of life and steadiness and Clarke can do impossible things again.

She writes lists of supplies and plans. She writes a list of essential people and prays for forgiveness. But her handwriting isn’t shaky. The ink flows smoothly on the paper. As if Bellamy is lending her his strength for just long enough to finish her tasks.

Her voice doesn’t shake when she makes announcements to her people and she’s aware of Bellamy’s keen stare trained on the back of her neck. His silent support, propping her up.

They’re unshakeable. Twining around and around each other as they hold each other up. Like two branches growing together up towards the light, however far away it might be. Clarke feels them both stretching for it, grasping for just another second of hope.

She thinks she loves Bellamy Blake. She’s  _ afraid _ she loves Bellamy Blake. That the way she feels herself growing and leaning and intertwining with him will catch them both in an endless cycle. Where death overtakes life and life tries to overcome death. Chasing each other round and round like a snake eating its tail. A boulder rolling down an infinite hill.

The radiation suit feels like a cocoon. Rubbery walls folding tightly around her arms and legs. Her breath resounds hollowly inside the helmet and she pushes away the urge to panic.

Bellamy meets her gaze as he slides his helmet over his head, but his eyes are already shuttered. The helmet is just another wall, another shield, to hide from Wanheda. She doesn’t blame him. Doesn’t blame the way his face twists with anger and sorrow everytime he looks at her.

It’s many hours in the Rover before they even try to talk. Before they attempt to mend what Clarke so callously ripped apart.

She tries to summon the hope of the green and the alive and the growing, but she can’t find it. Not when there’s ash raining from the sky and blood spattered across the white ground and she’s coughing up black blood because Emori is wearing her helmet.

Bellamy’s fingers reach for her, but the rubbery suits are still walls between them. Holding them apart.

She’s alone in this now. In a way he can’t possibly reach her.

When she tells him to hurry outside Becca’s lab, their eyes meet again and all the things he wants to say dance across his face in a flurry of frustration. But he presses his lips together in a firm line and Clarke turns to her task alone.

The echo of her slight breaths against the inside of her helmet keep her company as she climbs the radio tower. They speed up as she becomes more frantic, her heavy boots clanging against the metal struts. Her gloves are too thick, making her hands clumsy as she wrenches the satellite dish into place. She feels buried alive. A dead woman walking. A fitting end to Wanheda.

She sees the rocket launch, watches the smoke trail scorch through the atmosphere with a sense of dull pride. She stumbles back to Becca’s lab with radiation burns blistering across her skin. The suit is no longer protection. It’s a tomb, wrapped so tightly around her body she can’t breathe. Her legs move like lead through quicksand. She trips down the stairs and can’t even bring herself to get back to her feet as she tears off her helmet and coughs and coughs. As her cheek rests in a puddle of tacky blood, she vaguely hears the lab above collapse in on itself, sealing her inside.

Clarke carefully rolls onto her back and stares at the ceiling through blurry vision, imagining Bellamy somewhere far above, entering his own sealed tomb. Then she falls into blessed unconsciousness.

She’s pictured his return many times. Bellamy Blake, born on wings like a bird. Or maybe a butterfly. Cocooned in the stars and reborn to fly back to Earth.

She imagines his ship flying down into Eden. This garden that she loves not just because of Madi and not just because it saved her life, but because it feels like him. She imagines his first steps onto the ground, face wide with wonder and happiness. She imagines running, hurtling into his arms. Feeling the way his chin tucks against her forehead. Feeling his warm breath ghosting through her hair. Hearing the way his voice rumbles deep in his chest.

She never imagined a strange ship. Strange soldiers. Strange, strange and dangerous.

She’s not even sure if Madi is safe now, but her mind can only zero in on the shock collar around her neck. Her world narrows to the space between the bursts of pain and the anticipation of the next one is almost worse than the pain itself.

The soldiers are laughing, rough and raucous, as she writhes on the ground. The grass under her back is already trampled into mud from their heavy boots and she feels a pang of longing for her precious home. The shock buzzes through her body again and her vision goes white as she shakes with the force of the pain.

Then she hears his voice.

She curses this cruel perversion of her imaginations. But her brain insists on continuing to conjure him, right down to his familiar silhouette as he steps forward, bathed in the light of the Rover.

Clarke’s mind starts to catch up as he holds up a fist and the Rover begins to back away. The golden light catches the ends of his long curls and as he takes another step she can see the familiar clench of his fist, the confident stance, the fiery glint of a fight in his eyes.

Not a butterfly after all. A phoenix.

They pull her away from him and she wants to fight her way into his arms, but she’s limp and her breathing is ragged. They take her into a room with a bench and remove the collar. She’s not left alone to wonder for long because then he’s there. Warm and real and solid and pulling her into his arms.

She can hardly speak. Her tears wet his shirt, but his hands only tighten against the smoothness of her back. She presses into him and feels his righteous fire bleed into her, feeding her his strength. Not the slow growing hope of her memories, but a strength that tastes like burning stars and glittering ships and a smoldering flame just waiting to leap.

Different. Familiar. Bellamy.

She loves Bellamy Blake. Now and forever.


End file.
